


Let's Get Together

by tommyandthejons



Category: Crooked Media RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-15
Updated: 2018-06-15
Packaged: 2019-05-23 21:44:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,341
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14941928
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tommyandthejons/pseuds/tommyandthejons
Summary: The thing Tommy wanted clear from the beginning was he wasn’t Dr. Dolittle.  It wasn’t like it was all animals.  Dogs, and that was it.  He understood dogs, but not all dogs; there were some he couldn’t understand no matter how he tried.





	Let's Get Together

The thing Tommy wanted clear from the beginning was he wasn’t Dr. Dolittle. It wasn’t like it was all animals. Dogs, and that was it. He understood dogs, but not all dogs; there were some he couldn’t understand no matter how he tried. He wasn’t sure if they could communicate, but didn’t with him, or couldn’t, or exactly how it worked. It wasn’t like there was a handy video to watch like going through puberty, not that those had really been that helpful either. Besides, he’d understood dogs for as long as he could remember; he hadn’t had an imaginary friend growing up, he’d had their mutt Max and his parents had just thought he was especially imaginative about what Max was thinking, up to the point he realized not everyone else could understand dogs and had stopped talking about it.

Tommy wasn’t sure if it was that Max had been older before they’d started communicating, or that he’d been younger, or that they’d both been new to it, or what, but every dog he’d ever met had been pretty much the same up until Pundit. Even Pundit had been the same at first, a wave of warm feelings and unconditional love every time Tommy cuddled her. It was hard to resist, she was so little and adorable and full of warmth, even when Lovett started joking that they needed to get Tommy a dog before he decided to dognap Pundit.

It wasn’t until the day he said, “Wait, you said last night was game night, not _date_ night,” as he was cuddling Pundit, and everyone turned and gave him a look that Tommy realized there was no way in hell he should know that.

“What the fuck, Tommy?” Lovett said, but everyone else was interrogating Lovett about his date, so Tommy could just ignore it in favor of thinking at Pundit, “Did what I think just happened, happen?”

There was no response, of course, beyond the usual feelings of contentment as Tommy held Pundit, and Tommy wondered if he was losing it this time. Except he was pretty sure he’d gotten an image of Lovett kissing someone from Pundit, which was really only bothersome because that had never happened before, seeing something through a dog’s eyes, not just feeling it.

So Tommy put on his headphones and threw himself into his work so his brain would stop replaying the image he swore had come from Pundit, and it worked, well enough, even if the queasy feeling in his stomach didn’t ever quite go away.

“Tommy,” Lovett said. “Tommy, Tommy, Tommy,” and Tommy knew Lovett would keep going if he didn’t stop him.

“What, Lovett?” he asked.

“Seriously, how did you know I had a date last night? Are you stalking me?”

Tommy looked Lovett straight in the eyes and said, deadpan as could be, “Pundit told me.”

“Oh yeah, that’s it. Look, whatever, don’t tell me, but you’re being really weird.”

Tommy hadn’t really expected Lovett to believe him— hadn’t given him a reason to— but he still felt kind of disappointed at his reaction.

That would have been that, except whatever was happening with Pundit kept happening. Instead of getting doggy feelings of contentment or hunger or fear, the things Tommy was used to, he was getting bombarded with images of Lovett— Lovett cuddling Pundit, rubbing their noses together and laughing as she licked his face, Lovett playing video games, waking up grumpily to Pundit’s barks, and worst of all, images of Lovett with other men. It felt wrong, like he was spying on Jon, and uncomfortable, particularly when there was some guy he didn’t recognize there, in a way that left Tommy questioning himself. He was fine with Lovett being gay, and it wasn’t like Tommy’d never messed around with guys— for all Lovett joked about him and Favs being straight bros and Tommy had never bothered correcting him, it wasn’t that accurate.

It didn’t help that there was nothing predictable about when he’d get the images instead of just feelings and no way he could figure out to turn it off. Worse, both Pundit and Jon got both got upset when Tommy tried to solve his problems by avoiding her. He managed all of a two days before he had to give up that plan.

“It’s one thing to be mad at me,” Jon said, in a loud voice that made it clear he expected all attention to be on him, “but it’s another thing to take it out on a poor innocent angel like Pundit.”

He was pointedly not looking at Tommy as he cradled Pundit which made Tommy feel like even more of a jerk.

He held out until it was almost the end of the day before he went over to Pundit and crouched down.

“Sorry, girl,” he said, offering his hand, but Pundit turned herself in a circle and avoided him. He stayed crouched down. “It’s not your fault,” he said, and tried petting her, but he got a feeling of sadness before she pulled away.

“Ignoring her wasn’t enough?” Jon said and when Tommy turned his head, Jon was standing over him. He felt his heart beating faster, and didn’t quite know why.

“Listen, man, I’m sorry. I’ve just been in a funk lately.”

Jon put his hands on his hips, but he didn’t look too angry. “Yeah, well, next time don’t take it out on your friends. Or their dogs.”

“Deal,” Tommy said.

Before Jon left, he brought Pundit over to Tommy, held her out, and said, “Tommy apologized, so we’re going to forgive him.” Tommy was about to protest that Jon didn’t have to, when Pundit reached out and licked his face. He couldn’t even bring himself to pretend to be upset, he was so relieved.

He worked harder to compartmentalize after that, letting himself play with Pundit and joke with Lovett, and doing his best not to think about the dog’s eye view of Lovett’s ankle he’d seen, and definitely not staring at Lovett’s ankle to try and figure out if he’d imagined how strangely sexy it was. Tommy was a master at compartmentalizing, it had been a huge part of his job.

Things could have continued like that indefinitely, if it weren’t for the day when, in between everything else, Tommy got a flash of an image of a hole under the fence in Jon’s backyard from Pundit. It was so quick, he might have thought nothing of it, if it weren’t for the fact that it was immediately followed by the same feeling he got when Pundit barked in the middle of Game of Thrones.

Tommy almost said something to Jon then, told him to get his fence looked at, but there was no way he had to know that. Tommy hadn’t been over to visit Jon in weeks and things were still a little weird between them. The easiest thing was going to be to fix it himself; Jon never had to know.

He set his alarm extra early and bought a shovel, since he doubted Jon had one, to fill the hole.

He was almost finished when he heard a familiar voice. “Tommy? “What are you doing?”

“I can explain,” he said, which had to be the most guilty sounding thing he could have said in that particular moment. “What, what are you doing up?”

It was five in the morning; he knew Jon was never up that early. His entire plan was based on the fact that Jon was never up that early. He’d thought about waiting until Jon was heading out for the next Lovett or Leave It tour, but he’d been afraid if he waited that long, Pundit might decide to make a run for it.

Tommy was somewhat distracted from Jon’s response by his yawn and the way his shirt lifted, giving Tommy a glimpse of his stomach.

“It is my backyard,” he said, then he shook Pundit’s leash gently. “Someone needed to go. The question remains what are you doing here with,” he paused, rubbed at his eyes, looked Tommy over again, and finished, “a shovel? Tommy, you know if you’re burying bodies, you might want to try somewhere a little less incriminating. Or ask for help. I would be a great accomplice.”

Tommy put a hand to his neck and tried to think of a good excuse. When he couldn’t, he told Jon the truth. “I wanted to fill this hole so Pundit wouldn’t get hurt.”

Jon nodded. “Gotcha, that makes perfect sense except for how you knew about the hole in the first place. You haven’t been by in weeks.”

Tommy’s heard Jon play things up for an audience or attention and it would have been so easy for him to do that with this, but he didn’t. It made Tommy feel uneasy, like he was navigating how to deal with a stranger instead of one of his closest friends, which might have been why he chose to tell the truth instead of deflecting or telling one of the half dozen lies he’d considered before.

“I really can understand Pundit— not just Pundit, dogs, but Pundit's the clearest of any dog I’ve ever met,” Jon smiled at that, the same smile he got when Pundit came when he called her or managed to do some moderately easy trick. “And I saw this was here and wanted to fix it before she got hurt, but I didn’t think you’d believe me.” Tommy held in the urge to add he didn’t want Jon to start wondering what else Pundit had shown him.

“Okay,” Jon said, easily, so easily that Tommy couldn’t quite believe it. Nothing about Jon was ever easy— well, not quite nothing, but the things that seemed easy always seemed to hide something, and the things that weren’t, well, eventually they did become, if not easy, familiar, and strangely comforting.

“Okay?” he echoes. “I tell you that and you just say okay?”

Jon looked at him, eyes still sleepy, hair all soft in messy curls. “I knew something had you locked in your head. I just thought it might have been something else,” he smiled, a tiny, mocking smile that seemed more directed at himself than at Tommy, and Tommy couldn’t think of another time when he’d hated a smile more, even when Jon was making fun of him. “Honestly, this makes a lot more sense.

"Anyway, it's back to bed for me,” he said, but he didn't move right away. Maybe, Tommy though, it was time to be honest about more than hearing Pundit, with himself and with Jon.

“Actually, there is something else that I didn't know how to tell you.”  
“Oh? Better make it quick, quality sleeping time is passing.”

“I— the thing is, Pundit keeps thinking about you, of course, she loves you—” Tommy hesitated. Maybe he shouldn’t say anything, it was starting to sound like he’d fallen in— no, realized he liked, he corrected himself, Jon because of Pundit, not that seeing Jon through Pundit’s eyes had made Tommy really look at Jon as something other than his friend for the first time in years.

“Of course she loves me,” Jon preened a little at the confirmation, then his face twisted. “Oh. Is that why you’ve— oh. Look, whatever you saw, it’s not like I knew or you were trying to spy on me or—”

Anything had to be better than this, particularly since Tommy was pretty sure that Jon was moments away from working himself up to yelling at Tommy. “Lovett,” Tommy said commandingly and Lovett actually stopped. “Jon,” he switched to, “I was trying to say, I _like_ you.”

“Of course you like me, we’re friends, I mean, I’m probably your best friend—”

“Jon,” Tommy said again, and then reached out to put a hand on Jon’s arm. “I don’t want to be friends,” then, before Jon could flip out, he added, “Not just friends, at least. I—”

Jon was looking at him blankly, which was at least better than yelling at him, but it wasn’t what Tommy had been hoping for. This whole talking things out was for the birds. Tommy leaned in, slowly enough that Jon could pull away if he wanted and kissed him. It was almost chaste— Tommy didn’t let himself take the kiss deeper or push his leg between Lovett’s or any of the million things he wanted to do, just pressed his lips against his and held arm, thumb curling against Lovett’s bicep, even when Lovett’s lips parted slightly beneath his.

He broke off the kiss and looked at Lovett hopefully.

“Wow,” Lovett breathed out, which seemed like a good thing. “Okay, cool. Cool. Well, like I said, time for bed.”

Tommy stood there, watching as Jon turned away from him, not sure how to take that, when Jon turned back and said, “Aren’t you coming?”

Tommy grinned so hard it felt like his face was going to crack.

“To sleep, you freak, it’s way too early for emotional confessions or anything else,” Jon said, but he let Tommy grasp the hand that wasn’t holding Pundit’s leash.

“I’m not a cuddler,” Jon disclaimed as they got into bed, but after Tommy carefully lay down on the free side of the bed, he promptly turned and laid his head against Tommy’s chest. “It’s not cuddling.”

“Of course not,” Tommy agreed.

“For the record,” Jon said, his eyes closed already, “I like you too.”

Right then, it was enough for Tommy. The rest could come later. He started to nod off, the sound of the little huffing noises Lovett was making more soothing than any white noise generator he’d ever tried. Just before he did, he felt Pundit push up between them and got a mental image of her digging the hole beneath the fence in the first place along with a sense of satisfaction.

“You sly dog,” he whispered. He’d been played by a dog, but, truth be told, he couldn’t have been happier about it.

**Author's Note:**

> My first actual fic in this fandom! [Also I'm on tumblr!](https://tommyandthejons.tumblr.com)


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